The latest Transition Newcastle newsletter received the biggest response we’ve ever had. As part of the Fair Share Festival in November, Jasmine and Larni (both in year 10) are going to construct a tiny house out of second-hand and waste materials. We’ve had so many offers of materials and other support.

In a way, the tiny house exemplifies the focus of this year’s festival: the environmental and social impacts of over-consumption and waste in our society, and how we can make a difference.

Timed to coincide with National Recycling Week, the third Fair Share Festival will be a weekend of inspiration, education, community building, creative actions and entertainment. The festival includes:

Speakers, panel discussion and workshops about consumption, waste and alternatives

Upcycling workshops

Building the Tiny House

A screening of The True Cost, a film exploring who pays the price for our fast fashion

A giant clothing and book swap

An upcycled fashion parade

Children’s upcycling, art and circus activities

A repair café

Market stalls – food and upcycled/recycled products

Music and entertainment

Asset-based community development workshop at the Fair Share Festival, Newcastle.

The festivals are run by volunteers on a shoe string budget. Thanks to support of the City of Newcastle, we are going to be able provide a small honorarium to some of the people running upcycling workshops, and we are hoping other sponsors will come on board who will help cover the costs. It is a Fair Share festival so it we hope we will be able to also make small honorariums to people who perform at the festival or who bring professional skills to help us out.

According to Tom Toogood (from Permaculture Hunter who had the initial vision for the festival), its aim was to:

Explain and promote community and family-friendly alternatives (like co-ops, community barter, micro-business loans, community banks and mutual aid societies) to the current “greed is good” economic skullduggery that produced the global financial crisis.

In 2012, Transition Newcastle was asked if we would be willing to organise a second festival. The theme for the second festival was transitioning to a connected community, a localised fair economy and a sustainable future, and incorporated a public forum in collaboration with One Just World on “Closing the poverty gap – creating a fair share for all”.

In 2014 rather than a festival (partly because there wasn’t the energy for a full festival), there was a public forum and workshops with David Holmgren (co-founder of Permaculture) and Nicole Foss (a Permaculture teacher and finance and energy expert).

This year, the festival has been initiated by people from one of Transition Newcastle’s projects, Upcycle Newcastle, so the festival will have more of an emphasis on creativity, practical skills, and hands on participation in upcycling projects – taking responsibility for our over-consumption and waste. Interestingly, for the first time, most of the organising group are women.

The program is still taking shape but we are pretty excited by what is planned.

Presenters include:

Jane Milburn, a leading figure in the Australian slow clothing movement and the founder of Textile Beat, will discuss fast fashion and slow clothing as well as conduct two practical workshops and display garments from the national Slow Clothing Project in the upcycled fashion parade (There’s more about her in the Newcastle Herald)

Shann Turnbull, from the International Institute for Self-governance, Management and Investment Services, will discuss creating a zero growth economy

Outfits from the Slow Clothing Project on show at the Revive event in Brisbane (Credit: Jane Milburn)

There will be panel discussions on:

The share and sharing economy

Parenting in a consumer world

Managing waste

Responding to food waste

Dealing in waste

Urban farming

Creating an ecology centre for Newcastle

Some of the practical workshops include:

Textile upcycling -beginner and intermediate workshops

Upcycling ceramics

Composting

Upcycling pallets

Re-upholstery

Making a guitar from waste

One of the features of the festival that has remained constant has been the partnership with Hamilton Public School, where all the festivals have been held. This year we are really pleased that the school is getting behind the festival again and we are discussing ways of involving students in the lead up to and during the festival.

The first festival was attended by 250 people. The second festival grew to 800. We are confident that, with good weather, this year will be the most successful and we are aiming at 2000 people.

The festival is a real community effort and relies on many unpaid hours of work from a small group of hard working volunteers. Many of us don’t have specific skills in organising events, but we are willing to give it a go. It is great when people with specific skills join us. This year we are fortunate to have some people with some real experience in media and promotion which is making a huge difference.

Welcome to Sustaining Community

Families, community engagement and environmental sustainability – for parents, students, practitioners and anyone who wants to make a difference. By Graeme Stuart from the Family Action Centre at the University of Newcastle. The views are my own.